Create a Form for E-Signature with Docusign PowerForms

A PowerForm is a way to create a self-service online document for electronic signature without writing any code.

• What is a PowerForm?
• How do PowerForms work?

Table of contents

• What is a PowerForm?
• How do PowerForms work?

Whether you're serving citizens, onboarding employees, or managing equipment and maintenance requests, the ability to generate hundreds (or thousands) of on-demand, self-service documents for unknown recipients to sign can make all the difference for your organization.

With PowerForms, you can eliminate document preparation time, reduce errors and easily pull all that collected data into your existing applications, further streamlining your processes, while delivering a better customer experience. And because they feature the same security and privacy protection you’ve come to expect from Docusign eSignature, you can trust that your data will be protected.

What is a PowerForm?

A PowerForm is a way to create a self-service online document for electronic signature without writing any code. It’s a unique, secure URL created from a template that you can link to from your website or distribute as a secure link via email. When filling out a PowerForm, the secure link doesn’t require signers to log in, which reduces friction and makes the entire process easier.

What are the ideal uses for PowerForms?

PowerForms are a great way to capture signatures and data when you don’t know who the signers are in advance. Organizations across a wide range of industries are using them to improve an even wider range of processes. A sampling includes:

• Field service: there are a plethora of activities in field service that can benefit from a self-service form, including equipment requests, safety surveys and audits, maintenance records, electronic badge access signoffs, training class sign-ins and building pavement plan signoffs, to name a few.
• Financial: banks and other financial institutions see a constant influx of account and policy change requests. Automating that process via a self-service form not only reduces manual effort, it provides a better overall customer experience and facilitates remote support.
• Government: handling applications for assistance can be a very manual, time-consuming process, but with PowerForms, citizens can easily submit requests that go directly into the government systems, just like the Louisville Metro Government did to manage applications for federal CARES funds.
• Insurance: as with the financial industry, insurance companies can tap PowerForms to streamline account and policy changes.
• HR: Anytime you can simplify HR operations, that’s a good thing. Waivers, PTO requests, exceptions to new company policies…any HR process that lends itself to employee self-service is a perfect PowerForm candidate.
• Healthcare: If you’re looking to provide an online portal outside of your EHR, PowerForms can help you create a simple form on your website (or via a secure link in an email) that patients, physicians and vendors can use to easily submit paperwork directly into your online portal. Whether it be patient intake forms, documents to get staff or providers credentialed, or clinical study enrollments, the documents can be securely and directly uploaded to your EHR or document management system once completed in compliance with HIPAA and PHI.

Forms and documents that can benefit from PowerForms

Businesses and other organizations use PowerForms for a variety of situations, including:

• Account change requests
• Activity waivers
• Claims
• COVID-19 intake queries
• Credentialing
• Donations
• Employee handbooks
• Employee onboarding documentation
• Employee policies
• Event sign-ins and registrations
• Field service requests
• License requests
• New account openings
• New customer signups
• Patient intake forms
• Physician contracts
• Policy change requests
• PTO requests
• Release forms
• Sales order forms
• Standard NDAs
• Statements of work
• Visitor lobby registrations
• Volunteer onboarding

How do PowerForms work?

Docusign customers can create a new PowerForm by simply selecting a template and clicking Create PowerForm from the Actions menu. If you haven’t used templates or need a refresher, read “Using Templates for Contracts and Forms in Docusign” for guidance on how to create forms, a list of pre-built templates and more.

Once you’re in the Create PowerForm View, you’ll see that the summary fields are prefilled from the template information, which you can modify as needed.

1. Complete the summary information: this includes name and email subject.
2. Click the OPTIONS tab to set additional options: you can send a message to all signers and customize a number of other features in your PowerForm, such as email validation, usage settings, maximum number of signers and minimum time between responses.
3. Click CREATE to generate and activate your PowerForm: after creating it, you should test it, which is easy to do.
4. Capture the URL and/or embed code: this is equally easy, and you can do it immediately after creating the form or later via the Templates page.

Step by step instructions are available on the Docusign Support site, and if you’re more visually oriented, follow along with the video on how to create a PowerForm.